Moral High Ground
by LunaLikesSimonCats
Summary: Cinder gets a message from Emerald on her day off, telling her to go to Junior's club. What she finds there is unexpected and terrifying. I FAIL AT SUMMARIES I'M SORRY.
**Hello, wonderful turtles! Welcome to my first RWBY fanfic. I had a hard time choosing what to rate this, and I'd say that it is T for violence/gore/mentions of torture. Nothing too graphic, though. Enjoy!**

Cinder hated scrolls. They could be quite helpful, but they could also ruin your one day off. Cinder had left Roman in charge for a day while she went to her apartment to relax. While it didn't seem like she did much, Cinder had to keep everyone in check day after day. She was glad to sleep in and not think about the plan, or Roman, or Neo, or Mercury or Emerald. Well, she **would've** if she hadn't gotten a text from Emerald.

The green-haired thief could have at least been a little more specific. The text simply said _COME TO JUNIOR'S CLUB RIGHT NOW._ No matter how much Cinder wanted to ignore her underling and read a good book, she knew she shouldn't. There could be a problem involving Beacon, and those team RWBY girls who gave Roman so much trouble. Who knows how much they could have screwed up the plan?

Then again, Emerald could just be mad at Mercury and want Cinder to sort out their trivial issue. _If it's the second option,_ Cinder thought bitterly, _she will be punished._

So now, Cinder was walking towards Junior's club, glass heels clicking. She could hear the faint sound of dance music coming from the doors. She expected to have to blast the doors down, but before she could, they opened. For a moment, Cinder assumed that one of Junior's men had opened the doors for her, but a second later, Miltia, the red-preferring twin, ran out. Cinder was surprised to see her crying. There were tears on her cheeks and her shoulders shook as small sobs wracked her. She passed Cinder, not giving her a second glance, and ran off into the night.

Her clothes had looked slightly mussed and torn, but Cinder gave no mind. Whatever the girl was doing, it didn't affect Cinder. Or so she thought.

Upon entering, the club was a wreck. The music still played, but the dance floor was empty, the bar a mess of broken bottles, and the lights smashed. The most noticeable thing, however, was the bodies. Nearly everywhere Cinder looked, there were the lifeless (or at least unconscious) bodies of Junior's lackeys. Many had wounds; dark, bleeding holes in them and their clothing, pooling red onto the floor. Cinder readied a fireball in her hand, the light reflecting off the shattered glass that was spread about. Most of it was near the bar. Cinder slowly approached the filthy oak counter, keeping her eyes peeled for anything that moved. Nothing of too much importance on the table, just glass and unfinished drinks. Cinder stepped around a man lying on his side, blood still trickling from a wound at his gut. Cinder felt no pity for him; she had no idea who he was, and even if she did, he was about the bottom of the underground crime network's food chain. No one important. But behind the counter were a couple people that Cinder did recognize; Junior and Melanie. Junior was leaning against the side of the counter, obviously dead, his bazooka-like weapon in multiple pieces nearby. There was a look of fear on his slack face, his eyes lifeless yet still terrified. There was a bleeding hole in his chest. Melanie lay on the ground next to him, facing down. Cinder couldn't see her wound from the angle she was at, but a slit throat was a good guess. There was a pool of blood around her, staining her sea foam green dress. No wonder Miltia had been crying so much; she'd lost her twin during a massacre moments before.

Cinder still had no idea where her people were. Their bodies were nowhere to be seen, and Cinder didn't think the murderers had been them. It wasn't exactly their style. Now, she had to find them. They were very important to her plan. At least Junior and the Malachite twins had already fulfilled their part before their deaths.

Cinder noticed something in the back corner of the room; a door. It was slightly open, an almost unnoticeable splatter of blood near the handle. Cinder kept her fireball ready while stepping through the doorway. The next room, one she assumed was some sort of storeroom (considering the walls were hidden by shelves of bottles), was dim and seemingly clear of corpses. There was another partially open door at the back of it, so Cinder took another step forward and-

Something soft touched her forehead. Cinder immediately shot her hand, the one holding the fire, up to meet the object, and the light from the flame revealed the object. It was a hand, skin as the color of light clay, hanging from the ceiling. Luckily, the hand was attached to an arm, which was attached to a person. Emerald. Cinder stared at her underling, taking in the sight. Emerald was tied to the ceiling, a still-bleeding wound in her stomach. Her clothing was in tatters, torn and stained with gore, and most surprising of all, she was _alive._ Her crimson eyes were open and looking at Cinder, and she attempted to speak.

"Cinder… you came… "

Cinder forced herself to keep her calm-and-superior front.

"Who did this?" She asked in a practically monotone voice. Emerald opened her mouth to speak, but all that came out was a cough. Cinder waited until Emerald was finally able to talk again.

"Cinder… run… just run…" Emerald's eyes were slightly out of focus and teary. Cinder gave her a cold look.

"I asked you…" But Emerald closed her eyes and stopped moving, though Cinder could see the slight rise and fall of the thief's chest. Cinder shrunk the fire in her palm until it was small enough to have close to Emerald without giving her any serious burns. The last thing Cinder needed was to lose her most loyal ally. She slowly burned through the ropes binding the unconscious Emerald to the ceiling, until she fell from the prison of knots. Cinder caught her and gently set her on the ground. That was all she could do at that moment. Plus, Mercury, Neo, and Roman were still nowhere to be found, and there was a chance that they were alive, if Emerald was.

Cinder walked forward to the next doorway with feigned confidence in every clicking step. In truth, however, Cinder was quite frightened for what lay ahead. She'd dealt with murderers before, even homicidal maniacs like this. It was only once she'd seen Emerald that these worries had started. The mess in the club, that could be the work of a murderer, but someone who would not just kill, but main, tie up, and leave their victims to suffer was something else. Someone more insane, more dangerous.

Still, Cinder ignored the fear and walked into the next room. The first thing that she found was that the air smelled metallic, which could only mean one thing; blood. And when Cinder once again lit a large fireball in her hand, she found that she was right. The floor might as well have been painted red. In the mess lay a few more of Junior's henchmen, and Mercury. The gray-loving assassin was lying facedown in the pool of blood, a wound visible in his back. He was still and definitely dead. Cinder would mourn the loss later, however. There were still two more people to find.

No longer caring about the state of her brown glass heels, Cinder walked through the blood and to another door, this one on the left wall. Before she could grab the doorknob, however, she heard a voice from inside the room. A familiar voice.

"It's me, you know me! What are you- I know you have problems, but this is pure sadism, you do realize tha-"

Roman Torchwick's voice was cut off by the sound of a short scream, also from him. Cinder sucked in a breath. The whole situation was dawning on her; the destruction, the torture. This was not good. Not good at all.

She could still hear sound from behind the door. The sound of blunt hits, and clanging metal, and even quiet crying. Oh, how could Cinder be so foolish?! To be fair, though, she had blindsided them all. This was what you got from allying with a psychopath. She'd been so helpful, seemed so loyal. It was only a matter of time before this happened.

Without bothering to be her normal, sly self, Cinder kicked the door with all her force. Upon the impact, her glass heel shattered into hundreds of tiny dark shards, and the door swung open. She looked in to see what she had expected to see. That didn't dull the fear much, though.

The room was what looked to be another storeroom, this one full of larger bottles. They gleamed in the light of a small ceiling lamp, reflecting the scene around them. Roman was lying on the floor, his coat unbuttoned and stained crimson. He was not in good shape, far from it; one of his legs was bent at an odd angle and he was covered in cuts and small wounds.

And above him stood Neo. The tiny girl had a small broken bottle in one hand, her parasol sword in the other. Both weapons had a fair amount of blood on them, Roman's or otherwise. She turned to face Cinder, not dropping the weapons. Cinder fought the urge to step back. Neo's eyes were switching from brown to pink by the second, and she had multiple splatterings of blood across her face. Worst of all was her smile and expression. It was not a look of malice, or guilt, or even fear. It was joy.

She knew she could take Neo in a fight on a normal day, but this was far from normal. Something had set Neo off, and boy, had it set her off. Cinder saw Roman weakly attempt to move, turning over and dragging himself a few inches away from the sadistic ice cream girl. It was pathetic to watch, and it seemed to catch Neo's attention. She turned, once again, away from Cinder and lengthened her arm, pointing the thin blade of her sword at the back of Roman's neck. He stopped and froze in place. _Now or never,_ thought Cinder.

But now or never what? Should she attempt to take down Neo, when she could likely fail? Or should she take Emerald and run? If she ran, she'd surely lose Roman, but if she stayed, she had a chance of losing both of her remaining allies. Cinder had had everything planned out perfectly. No flaws, no visible problems. She'd overlooked the fact that one of her key players was an extremely powerful psycho, and now that mistake was back to get her. Would she run, save herself and create a new and improved plan, or would she try to fix the disaster as much as she could and possibly die in the process?

Cinder knew which option was the honorable choice, the one that morals tell you to choose. Fix your mistakes, save the people in danger. It was the perfect moment to do that. Neo was preoccupied with Roman, leaving the opening for Cinder to end her. Cinder silently worked her semblance, creating three long and sharp glass shards. They pointed towards the smaller girl. Just one movement, and she'd be skewered and the whole massacre would come to an end.

Neo remembered that someone had been behind her, the fire lady. She needed to see what she was doing. Roman could wait. When Neo turned around, she saw three glass shards. They looked deadly, wickedly sharp and as thin as her parasol sword.

They lay abandoned on the ground, in front of the door, which was open and swinging slightly. Neo smiled, knowing full well what had happened, and turned back to Roman. He was hers to finish and no one could get in the way of that now.

Cinder was never one to take the moral high ground.

 **So, this happened. Please R &R.**


End file.
